As many Elizabethtown College students headed home for fall break, a group of students chose to stay behind on a quiet and empty campus, carpooling each day to home construction sites in Lebanon and Columbia. The students spent their break restoring houses alongside Habitat for Humanity.
Organized through the Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) office, the Fall Break Service Trip provided students with an opportunity to trade their usual time off for a hands-on community service experience.
“I saw this as being productive for me as a person,” said Benjamin Rodriguez, a first-year English literature major. “Giving back and working to help make the community more accessible for those in need of homes is a beautifully humbling thing for the soul.”
For participants, remaining on campus while most peers departed offered a large contrast to typical daily life on a college campus.
“It was very quiet and empty,” said Jazielly Sena, a junior International Business major. “I’m not used to Etown not looking lively throughout the day.”
First-year accounting major Justin Flickinger echoed this sentiment, noting that the campus felt very peaceful and the decision to stay made the trip feel even more impactful to him.
“I was expecting small tasks such as painting walls or putting up shelves, but I was greeted with a lot more physical work than I expected,” Flickinger said.
The tasks required over the two-day build proved far more strenuous than many participants initially envisioned.
On the first day in Lebanon, the crew focused on outdoor site preparation.
Students pulled up old bricks one by one from in front of a home to make way for a concrete sidewalk. After removing the bricks, the group dug out a trench about a trench4 inches deep, shoveled dirt into barrels, leveled the ground using a stretched string guide and spread gravel to prepare the surface.
Sena said returning to the Lebanon build site carried personal significance.
“I actually worked on [this site] last year during the fall service trip,” Sena said. “Being able to come back and see the progress from when the house was broken down to the bones to just missing appliances feels so surreal. This house is so close to being a home to a beautiful family of four, the mother and three little girls.”
After completing the sidewalk preparation ahead of schedule, the group spent remaining time volunteering at the local YMCA in Lebanon, collecting trash around the building and surrounding property up to nearby train tracks.
On the second day, the focus shifted to indoor renovation at a site in Columbia. The heavy lifting intensified as students hauled nearly 30 heavy sheets of drywall, measuring 11 feet long, from upper floors down into the basement.
“These were heavy and awkward to carry and needed to be done in teams of two for each sheet,” Rodriguez recalled. “This difficult task made us bond together as we counted down the sheets and maneuvered the challenges of carrying them together.”
In addition to moving the materials, students learned basic construction skills for the first time. Working in groups, participants drove protruding screws into walls, applied spackle mud over seams, taped ceilings with fiberglass tape, cut wood and installed flooring.
Kai Derstine, a first-year psychology major, recalled overcoming intimidation when using heavy machinery for the first time.
“To be honest, the circular saw terrified me,” Derstine said. “I was scared I was going to mess up and I wanted to give up on it. However, someone needed to be the one to use it. I pushed through, and after a few times of using it, I got the hang of it.”
Derstine added that seeing the tangible results of their work made the effort worthwhile.
“The moment that stood out to me the most was when my friend Anna and I installed the first closet floor,” Derstine said. “To see the product of our measuring, outlining, sawing, gluing, nailing, and installation was incredible.”
Beyond construction skills, the service trip offered students broader insight into affordable housing challenges across the region.
During lunch breaks, Habitat for Humanity staff shared the historical context about the organization’s mission and future initiatives, such as planned condo-style developments for community members in need.
“It just really opened my eyes to how much the struggle of those in my community and neighboring ones persists,” Rodriguez said. “Another thing that it gave me perspective on was how grateful I should really be to be able to attend college and have a stable home life that I can return to without worry.”
Flickinger similarly noted how seeing old homes in need of repair highlighted the financial hardship involved in residential maintenance.
“It made me reflect on how hard it is for people to afford such remodels and continue to deal with the problems of old homes,” Flickinger said.
While the work site presented physical challenges, participants noted that the shared labor transformed a group of relative strangers into a cohesive team. Carpooling, taking lunch breaks, and problem-solving through difficult tasks allowed students from various majors and class years to connect.
“When we first met up in the morning of the first day no one really interacted with each other, but by the end of the service trip we grew much closer,” Sena said.
As students returned to classes following the break, participants encouraged others to consider taking part in future CCCE service opportunities.
“I would say just do it,” Sena said. “You would have an amazing time getting to make a positive impact on the community.”
